šæ Monday Meditation: Rooted Resistance
On Contemplation, Activism, and the Work of Becoming
Dear Becoming Ones: Every Monday, or most every Monday, I send out a Monday Meditation. This morning, Iām writing from Richmond, VA where I am doing work in community here. I love my time in RVAāI love being in the South and nurturing connections and practicing being in right relationship with folks who care about social repair.
I have been away teaching at Duke for the past week and we nurtured conversations around decolonial thought and Buen Vivir. Iāll be sharing more about this phrase in the coming days as i work on a manifesto of Buen Vivir that weaves together wisdom traditions as a framework for Interspirituality. Iām excited about this!
Today, Iām thinking about being rooted and practicing resistance. We need to turn toward contemplation as an act of refusal.
Paz, āRCE+
šæ Monday Meditation: Rooted Resistance
On Contemplation, Activism, and the Work of Becoming
āNot everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.ā
ā James Baldwin
āThe function of freedom is to free someone else.ā
ā bell hooks
āThere is a sociality that exists before law, before property, before identity.ā
ā Fred Moten
āNothing happens in the ārealā world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.ā
ā Gloria AnzaldĆŗa
šÆļø Arrival
Dear Becoming Ones,
Before the week begins asking things of youā
before the inbox tightens your chest,
before urgency masquerades as importanceā
let us slow down.
Not to escape.
Not to disengage.
But to arrive.
To arrive in our bodies.
To arrive in our breath.
To arrive in the long, unfinished work of becoming.
ā³ The Scripts We Inherit
Supremacy culture trains us to move fast.
To measure our worth by output.
To stay productive even when we are hollowed out.
It scripts us into speed,
into comparison,
into a chronic overriding of our own knowing.
And most days, we donāt choose these scriptsā
we inherit them.
We absorb them.
We perform them in order to survive.
š± Contemplation as Refusal
Contemplation is not passive.
It is not withdrawal from the world.
Contemplation is a refusal
to let domination set the tempo of our lives.
When we slow our breath,
we interrupt the machinery of supremacy.
When we pause,
we loosen the grip of scripts that tell us
we must always be proving, producing, performing.
Stillness does not mean inaction.
It means re-alignment.
š„ Activism Rooted in Becoming
Activism untethered from contemplation
can become brittle, reactive, extractive.
But activism that rises from rootednessā
from listening, from presence, from careā
moves differently.
It listens before it charges.
It refuses spectacle.
It chooses solidarity over saviorism.
This is the work of becoming:
unraveling from what scripts us into domination
and re-membering ourselves into collective life.
š« A Monday Practice: Unraveling the Script
If it feels supportive, try this:
ā¢ Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly.
ā¢ Take three slow breathsālonger on the exhale.
With each exhale, ask:
What am I being asked to rush today that does not need my urgency?
With each inhale, whisper:
I choose becoming over proving.
Let that be enough.
š A Collective Horizon
When enough of us slow down together,
supremacy loses its rhythm.
Our rootedness becomes contagious.
Our refusals become generative.
Our lives begin to tell different stories.
May this week find you
less scripted,
more alive,
and quietly aligned
with the work of becoming.
šļø In solidarity and slowness,
Roberto